This report, which focuses on the portions of the Arctic that are within U.S. jurisdiction, seeks to build upon those efforts by exploring common management approaches to address this rapidly changing region.

This "white paper" is a compilation of research on oil spills in ice-covered Arctic waters and recommendations for future work. We identify research entities in governmental, nongovernmental, industrial, and private organizations, and provide an inventory of research projects.

Growth in human use of the Arctic illustrates the need, in both the short and longer term, for a more robust MTS infrastructure, whether for energy development, spill response, search and rescue, indigenous and environmental protections, or maritime law enforcement.

While war in the Arctic appears unlikely at present, this thesis analyzes why an escalation of territorial and resource disputes in the Arctic up to and including the use of force cannot and should not be ruled out.

The U.S. Navy recognizes that the opening of the Arctic Ocean has important national security implications as well as significant impacts on the U.S. Navy's required future capabilities. The national security interests of the United States, an Arctic nation through the state of Alaska, extend into the entire Arctic Region.

The diminishment of Arctic sea ice has led to increased human activities in the Arctic, and has heightened interest in, and concerns about, the region's future. The United States, by virtue of Alaska, is an Arctic country and has substantial interests in the region.

Once barren and desolate, the Arctic is slowly coming to life with industry and commerce brought about by receding ice conditions. Along with that comes the need for a comprehensive and actionable Arctic policy.

Without adequate defensive posturing, competition over Arctic resources could become the first direct existential threat to U.S. sovereignty. This paper will provide a strategic assessment of the Arctic, from the Department of Defense perspective, and provide recommendations for the combatant commander to prepare defensive lines of effort, should they be needed in 10-15 years or beyond.

In 1920 U.S. Navy free balloon A-5598 smashed down in a remote winter forest in northern Ontario, Canada. The three crewmen, ill-equipped to be lost in a snow-covered woodland, faced a life and death struggle against cold, hunger and exhaustion. But luck was with them. A dog and a Cree Indian each played a role in saving the balloonists. Still, the story had a distressing ending.

When Shackleton’s ship was caught in the ice and crushed, 2nd officer Tom Crean faced each setback as though he did this sort of thing every day. When 28 men were forced to take to sea in three small boats, he took the helm of one of them. To save those men, he crossed the southern ocean in an open boat, to land on a barren shore and cross an unknown territory. Hold Fast follows on that journey.

Extracts from the Heroic Era Antarctic expedition diaries exemplify the immediacy and continuity of such records, qualities that are not consistently present in the other forms of recording. The diaries emerge as the most truthful, dependable and encompassing record of the Heroic Era polar experience.

In the icy sub-Antarctic, six marooned seamen survive against unbelievable odds. Their rescue from remote, inhospitable, uninhabited Campbell Island is a sensation that rocks the world. But no one could have expected that the court hearings that follow would lead not just to the founding of modern search-and-rescue operations, but to the fall of a colonial government.

Tom Crean’s courage in the face of deadly odds his fellow Antarctic explorers. Had he weakened and failed their lives would have remained stories untold.
This is the story of a common man in uncommon circumstances who met every challenge as it came with steadfast purpose. If he knew fear, he never showed it.